


White Winter Hymnal

by trepidatingboarfetus



Category: Grand Theft Auto Series (Video Games), Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Gen, Heavy Angst, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:06:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27554314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trepidatingboarfetus/pseuds/trepidatingboarfetus
Summary: From the newly released The Lost Boys Volume One GTA V Fanzine!A retelling of the Ludendorff prologue through Trevor's eyes.
Relationships: Michael De Santa/Trevor Philips
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6





	White Winter Hymnal

**Author's Note:**

> Remember me mentioning that I was busy working on a huge-ass GTA V Fanzine project with a friend and a bunch of kickass writers and artists? Well, it's out!! Go grab it! 
> 
> https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wuK7xUDkj4vioR6lWT3eqaeelOHmMwv3
> 
> My retelling of the prologue through Trevor's eyes. This song was perfect. Why had no one ever used it?? Anyway, White Winter Hymnal is by Fleet Foxes.

_I was following the pack, all swallowed in their coats_

_With scarves of red tied ‘round their throats_

_To keep their little heads from falling in the snow_

_And I turned ‘round and there you go_

_And Michael, you would fall and turn the white snow red_

_As strawberries in the summertime_

  
  


These plans were built to go off without a hitch; "no fuss, no muss" as Michael was often fond of saying as he’d slap Lester while the bespeckled man would sputter and bitch but blush just the same each time, and this one was supposed to go that way too, but something was raising the hackles on the back of his neck and had been ever Michael had uttered the words, “Slow and steady, T, slow and steady.” 

The cash collection was taking forever, and Michael had never dicked around so much in his life -- except maybe with him, he thought miserably. Michael also wasn’t usually so sloppy but had allowed some two-bit old rent-a-cop fuck to pull off his ski mask and make him, and the fucking kicker was watching him use one of those god-awful movie lines he loved so much from that one damn director he’d had a raging hard-on for since forever. 

It was about that time that he’d started to realize he’d been pushing Mikey too hard, too much. He really was sounding like he was done, and it was tearing at what rotten lumps combined to form Trevor’s heart -- or at least he told himself that's what his heart was. 

Maybe everyone needed a vacation. Maybe he and Brad needed to do some shit together, leave Michael alone. 

Ah, but that was tearing at him too. He didn’t _want_ to do _shit with Brad_ . He wanted to do _shit with Mikey_ , just like the old days before that bitch had come in and demanded his balls. 

The next thing he knew, the old fat fart was pointing a gun in Michael’s face, and all he could see was red. Yeah, that asshole was shivering in his two sizes too tight uniform now, probably about to piss or shit himself, and let him! How _dare_ anyone put a gun to Michael Townley’s head! He’d show that fucking prick what psycho means!

But Mikey as always was trying to calm the situation, and there just wasn’t any fixing this fucking mess, couldn’t he _see_ that?? This bastard was trying to take him down, just like these wannabe heroes always tried, and he wasn’t going to allow that to happen!

And BAM. Just like that, the old man went down, but there were no offers of thanks for Trevor or praise for a job well done. He couldn’t remember the last fucking time he’d heard the words leave Michael’s mouth even, and his face slowly turned from a jaded snarl into a wistful frown. He thanked his lucky ass that no one could see behind the mask and proceeded to follow onward with the rest of his ragtag crew who looked more like they were dressed for a day of shoveling the previous night’s arctic dumpings, not a fucking robbery, swallowed in their winter gear as they all were. 

Another loud explosion shook the place, followed quickly by sirens, and anger consumed him briefly as he wondered aloud who fucking had the audacity to snitch. Thoughts went straight to the new kid who was driving, but truthfully, he was probably too scared shitless to do much harm because he’d been too worried about being labeled as an accomplice, and Lester was automatically off the fucking table because Lester was about as anti-establishment as Trevor, himself, got. 

That left Brad and Mikey, and his mind wouldn’t even entertain that last thought. Brad was fucking stupid enough, yes, for a bigger cut or if somehow someone had made him sing, but _Michael_?

His heart thumped erratically in his chest. No time like the present to bleed out some anxiety on some fucking cops. 

Bullets flew everywhere, banging loudly off metal cars and concrete buildings, and the ringing replaced the thumping in his ears, but it was a welcome change. He didn’t want to think, he just wanted to _do_ right now. The heartbreaking action of trying to actually figure out what had gone wrong here could come much later with Lester at hand to hold him back from fucking up the face of whomever the fuck had done or said what. 

Or Lester could keep watch over him in the aftermath after he’d have to break his own heart if...if….

He pushed that thought away again.

It was Brad. Or maybe he was just overthinking shit. He did tend to jump the gun sometimes, go off the rails...OK, so he could get a little crazy and particular about how things were handled. Didn’t _everyone_ when it came to a job?

They’d lucked out by the grace of their nuts, and the kid they’d hired to drive hadn’t flaked out and sped off. He followed his pack of fellow eager entrepreneurs by the sounds of their footfalls crunching in the snow and hurried towards the SUV. 

The heater barely budged in the fucking piece of shit, but at least they were alive, and all in one piece, although Michael was moving like an old man. He barked at him to get the fuck in there, nearly asked him what the fuck was the holdup, and to shake the lead out because they needed to go and go _now_. 

And of course, Brad was straight to his afterparty yammering about scared bitches, how massive his shriveled cock was, and it thundered in Trevor’s ears like an avalanche. 

“Bahbahbahbahbahbahbahbahbah!” he yelled, trying to drown out the waves of annoying sound and the feeling of impending doom, but he couldn’t rest even a single goddamn minute before the blare of sirens were next to them, crawling up alongside their window. He cursed at himself, at his life, at the fucking stupid state of North Yankton, at whoever’s miserable ass had ratted them out, at that stupid smirking sexy hockey coach who’d said he would’ve had _so much more potential_ if he’d just bent his knees a little more before Trevor’d shown him how much potential _he_ could have on the business end of that hockey stick, and finally at whatever beings there were upstairs or downstairs that were torturing him currently before he broke his window and hung himself halfway out it, firing at them. 

The sound of gunfire plagued him again, things whirring and buzzing by his head, and he tried to mentally count to twenty-five, thirty, _anything_ just to concentrate on something while he aimed because counting had always been a soothing task for him, but the next thing he knew, the fucking driver had a hole in his head where you could see out the other side. They had just a _slight_ problem….

Before he could even say anything, Michael jumped into action as if he’d risen from the great beyond where thieves and cons go, pushed the kid out of the car, hopped into the driver’s seat, and rammed the police vehicle all in one swift fluid motion. And Trevor watched it all and whooed so hard, he thought he nearly nutted there in the suburban because it was fucking astounding to behold. Michael at his highest excellence was a work of art worthy of being stashed at and stolen from the Louvre.

He reminded them that they needed to hurry to the chopper, and they had to be quicker than the train to do so. Something deep inside him urged him onwards, willed him to hurry Michael, to pick up speed because something in his gut just didn’t feel right still even though everything was starting to look on the up and up. 

However, those hopes were slowly dashed, one by one. He’d truly wanted to believe they weren’t made when those two flew by, but then he saw the roadblock and felt his heart sink straight into his asshole, left there throbbing painfully as he frantically ordered Michael to turn right to avoid them, but he didn’t account for the goddamn train being _right there_ or that the damn thing would clip the end of them. 

Or that they’d smack right into a fucking tree.

No, nothing about the damn thing was going according to plan. It all suddenly stunk, but it wasn’t the first time he or Michael’d had to rethink and regroup. Wouldn’t be the last, he supposed as he waited for his head to stop pounding. 

Mikey’s voice came through the bursts of sound, just enough, that he could hear him grunt softly, “You guys all right?”

He shook his head and opened the door with a resounding, painful, “Fuck! C’mon, ditch the car, all right? We can go this way to the chopper.” And he walked away, expecting his crew to follow because when a plan was FUBARed, it just was, and they had to think on their feet. Brad knew it; he was starting to come out of the vehicle and cross over to him. Michael knew it too. Right?

 _Right_?

“No! Hey! Stick to the plan.”

Except apparently, he didn’t know. Not anymore.

He turned around and looked at the man he’d called best friend, brother, and had even dared to sometimes call _something else_ that he didn’t dare utter lest Mikey would run off in fear over the years, and he wondered if he was hearing him right. Surely that was it. The gunfire, the nasty migraine he had rearing its ugly head, the deafening sounds coming from everywhere looking to drive him insane...that had to be affecting him, and he was just misunderstanding him. 

“What?”

Michael gave him a look he didn’t think he’d often seen in their time together, and it was usually reserved for times when he was pretty fucking pissed off by or disgusted with Trevor. His lips curled in disdain, and his eyes flashed angrily. “Stick to the fucking plan, come on.”

He wanted to reach out and shake him, ask him what the fuck was wrong with him. Why the fuck wouldn’t they alternate their course like they’d always done in the past when the heat was pouring on? Why was he doing this? Did he have some sort of fucking deathwish??

But instead, he sighed and swallowed his words, followed his pack. Because that’s what they all did. They stayed together. 

Their feet crunched easily through muddied driven-upon snow as they walked down some forgotten side street of Ludendorff where the houses were mostly old and worn down relics now. Brad was not surprisingly the first to complain about the chopper and lack of it, and Trevor knew it was because Brad had never been built for jobs that require much walking or running. He wasn’t a former fucking athlete like Michael had been or just in some sort of decent shape like himself. Brad was in a shape, all right, but not the right one. 

What Mikey’s plastic titty pole dancer had ever seen in Brad was beyond his comprehension. Trevor preferred guys built like Roman gods, personally. Guys like the one currently strolling alongside him. 

God, he really needed to keep his head in the fucking game. 

And as soon as he thought that, the sound of thunderous fire from a rifle ripped through the air. A bullet sliced straight through bitching Brad like he was butter, and as he watched him hit the ground with a sickening force that he shouldn’t have, it dawned on Trevor that the damn thing could’ve easily hit him. He could’ve been lying in that street just now. Dammit, dammit, _dammit_. 

His heart leaped into his throat at that thought and settled back down into his chest, racing like an old 409 Chevy engine. His mind kicked into gear, and he shouted at Michael as he ran for cover, “Run! It’s the fucking Feds!” And the notion hit him again, coming in waves of sorrow and boiling fury. “Someone must’ve fucking talked.”

_But Brad was shot, so who the fuck talked? Who, Trevor?_

He didn’t like the way his brain was speaking to him, slipping in suggestive shit at the base of his skull like some sort of slithering snake. 

For whatever reason, Michael was looking over Brad’s wound and declaring him OK even though there was so much blood, Trevor’s mind was whispering to him that Brad was _anything but_ , and even then, his heart spoke clearly that Michael deemed him OK for a fucking reason _so just listen to Michael goddammit_. 

His ears and head were ringing with so many sounds, his head was a pounding mess of a blizzard, and there was so much snow everywhere. On the ground, in the air, in his brain, in his heart….

Michael was saying something about needing to get the fuck out of there. Yes, that...that was the only thing that made any kind of sense through the muck and mess, so he reached through the veil of haze to grab at it. 

Then another shot pierced through the wall.

Nononononono _no_.

He turned around from where he was crouching and watched everything happen as if it were in slow motion. In his eyes, the bullet tore through Michael, and he fell backward into the pure white snow, tainting it red with the blood from his hands, and he wasn’t sure how much of it was his and how much of it was Brad’s, but his stomach lurched violently. His body fought with the desire to puke, and his heart cried out to his beloved laying on the cold ground. 

Everything was red, so very much red, and all he could think of when he closed his eyes were the wild strawberries he’d often picked and eaten as a boy, growing in the fields behind the trailer park. Red like strawberries. 

He didn’t think he’d be eating strawberries ever again. He gulped his vomit back down.

Michael was trying to tell him to leave, _why_ was he telling him to go? Didn’t he know he could never leave his side? He’d rather die by his side than live a half-life without him. It was no life at all.

When he heard the words _bleed out_ leave Michael’s mouth as more police pulled up, he saw red again. And he kept seeing red, no matter if he closed his eyes or kept them open. Red was rage. He could do rage. Rage felt good. 

And eventually, he trudged through the roaring blizzard, letting it carry his legs away and embrace him with its comforting sounds of whiteout nothingness. It was better than hearing the only man he’d ever loved last words spoken to him gently and repeatedly in his head. It was better than hearing his muffled tears in the wind. It was better than hearing a huge piece of his crooked soft heart finally fall off and die.

He’d never complain about noise again. Not when he’d need it to drown out the ones left behind. 


End file.
